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“That’s twice now you’re swaying on your damned feet,” he said, steadying her. “Do you need a keeper 24/7,cara?”
“It’s been a long day and I shouldn’t have stood up so fast.” She pressed her forehead into his chest. “I’m fine now. You can let me go.”
He didn’t, for a long while. His heart thundered against her forehead, far too erratic, while his fingers dug a little harder into her shoulders.
Did he know how his rough breaths and rougher touch betrayed him?
Nyra took every little thing he gave her. That his concern was solely for the babies—clearly, he was one of those men who was made to raise a family—couldn’t ruin the moment for her.
After what felt like hours, he released her.
Her legs shook, for a new reason now, as she walked across the lounge. When she brought it back to him and placed it on the coffee table, he stared at it as if it were a suspicious…alien thing. Granted, the chocolate cake did look a little crooked.
When she’d have moved to the opposite side of the table, he held her in place with his hands on her hips. She couldn’t help leaning into him with a sigh.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a chocolate cake. A pathetic-looking one but one all the same.”
“Ahh…I see that now.”
Covering his arms with hers, she pinched his abdomen. Not quite possible when it was a slab of rock though.
“Why have you brought me this sad-looking cake is the question I meant to ask.”
“I baked it. For you. I…wanted to give you something for which I didn’t dip into your own bank account. Five minutes in, the chef tried to discourage me. I think his heart was breaking at my lack of even basic baking skills.”
Behind her, Adriano stilled. Seconds piled on as Nyra waited, her breath hovering somewhere in her throat.
Embarrassment flushed through her as he continued to be silent. “I’m sorry that I don’t have something more…sophisticated. I did start painting something for you but I didn’t have time to finish it.”
Untangling herself from him, she grabbed the plate and looked around for a trash bin when he took it from her, nearly dislodging it from the plate in the process. He held it close to his chest, as if it were precious and regarded her with twinkling eyes. “I see the hungry glint in your eyes,cara. But this is mine.”
She laughed and wished she could snap a pic of him like this to hide away for herself. Blinking back sudden tears and fighting the sweeping rush of something else, she looked around. “I forgot to bring a lighter. I did manage to secure a single candle from the galley.”
He handed her a sleek navy-colored lighter.
Under his curious gaze, Nyra stuck the candle into the cake, which threatened its whole existence a little more, and lit it. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him until he was bending over the table by her side and handed him a knife. “Make a wish, Adriano.”
And when he blew out the candle, she sang for him. Out of tune and at a very bad pitch. Then she fed him a bite of the cake.
His eyes widened. “How deceptively like you,cara. It tastes like heaven.Grazie millefor my birthday celebration, wife.”
Nyra stared at him as he grabbed the knife and cut another piece of the now crumbling cake, a sudden lightness to his movements. All week, she’d been desperate to make him happy, to show him that she was committed to them.
But instead of the grand party and the transformation she’d forced on herself and all the hundred new things she was learning to be, the pathetic cake had done it.
When he brought the piece of cake to her mouth, the moist chocolate exploded on her tongue. When he bent down to lick a crumb from her mouth, sweeping molten heat through her, she stole a kiss from him.
And when he pulled her close and dragged his mouth up her jaw to her temple and pressed a soft kiss there, she did the thing she promised herself she would never do again.
She fell in love with him, just a little. But this time, it was with the real man. Not the billionaire who had offered her protection and escape from a lonely, horrible life all those months ago. Or even the man who had promised to never doubt her again.
But this man, with his authoritative demands that belied his aching touches, with his soft confessions about what he wanted from her, this man who always strove to do the right thing…
She was falling in love with the real Adriano and she didn’t know how to stop it. Because that way lay expectations, and she’d been burned too many times already.
Chapter Eleven